White
by bipping
Summary: Oneshot. A nation on the verge of surrender struggles to stay strong.


**Author's Note:**

So a couple years ago I went through this phase during which I wrote short WWII stories. I never named the characters, because that was my style. I mean, I found a bunch of stories, like this really sweet one about this guy and his best friend, and none of the characters have names. They have descriptions, but no names. And I'm like...weird.

But yeah, I found a notebook ful of stories like that; none of the characters are named, and the majority of them are set in WWI or WWII.

And I realised that if I tweaked them slightly, they would totally be fanfiction.

I've started trying to edit some of them,because I really love them. I think they're sweet. They aren't, but I like them. This is my first attempt.

I thought I'd re-write this one, because it's my favourite, and I really need a break from Reversal right now. I have complete writers' block with that, and no clue how to end it.

Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya, who I am not.

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><p>White.<p>

Take a minute to think about this word.

Roll it around on your tongue.

White.

Big deal. It's a colour. White is a colour.

But it's what the colour signifies that counts.

So think for another moment.

What does white signify?

Purity. Hope. Clarity.

Peace.

Peace, a word often used but rarely understood.

He was so close to surrendering.

Nations far larger then him had fallen to the ever growing might of Germany.

There would be no shame in surrender.

He looked at the white cloth before him and considered what he was about to do.

He felt himself grow angry.

He would not allow himself to go through with it.

His siblings would not allow him to go through with it.

He wouldn't go through with it.

He ran his hand across the surface of the white sheet, staining it with blood from wounds he doubted would ever heal.

He ran his hand once again across the surface, bisecting the first line he had drawn.

He felt the ghost of a smile pull desperatley at the corner of his mouth.

He closed his eyes and brought his face to meet the cold night air.

He would not surrender.

The flag that had been white was no longer white.

Stained with his blood, it was no longer white.

This flag no longer represented peace or surrender.

This flag now represented his desperation.

He rose from his kneeling position.

He opened his eyes to the derelict buildings that now made up what had once been the heart of one of the world's most powerful empires.

He lost himself to the twisted music that was Total War; a three-part harmony of German planes, German bombs, and the British property they demolished.

Sometimes it was the scream of a building as it toppled, shaken from it's roof to it's foundation.

And then sometimes it was he scream of a child as they watched that building fall upon their mother, and stood unable to do anything.

He grabbed the corners of his make-shift flag and held it above his head.

He just stood there, holding it, making himself a clear target for any bomber.

But he smiled.

"Keep calm and carry on," he told himself.

"What on Earth are you doing, you fuckwit?" he heard. "Get the fuck out of the road!"

There was a tug at his arm, and the strong, familiar redhead pulled him quickly in one direction, then another.

It was a race; a race to see if they would make it to shelter before a bomb made it to them.

Public shelters tended to fill up during raids. After all, that was their purpose. But somehow they managed to find one that would make room for them.

He squeezed onto the end of a bench, sat between his brother and a woman who was slowly rocking her son, whispering to him.

The lad couldn't have been more than six, but his wide awestruck eyes had clearly seen more bloodshed than any his age should ever have to.

"What the fuck were you doing in the middle of London in the middle of a blooming raid!" whispered the bushy eyebrowed Scotsman who had pulled him to safety. "Do you have any idea how worried we've all been about you?"

He looked down, feeling ashamed.

"We all thought you'd fallen. If Germany got you, England, the rest of us don't stand a fuckin' chance!"

He fiddled with the flag that lay folded between his hands.

He wasn't selfish to want this all to be over.

It wasn't selfish, what he'd been about to do, right?

"I- That's what I was going to do Scott."

"What the fuck do you mean, that's what you were going to do?"

England took a minute to pause, to think about all the other countries that had fallen.

He twisted his flag one way, then the other way.

Scotland's eyes fell to it.

"No," he gasped. "No, no, no, no, NO! We are not giving up this easily!"

He punched his brother sharply in his arm.

The shock of it caused England to drop his flag, and as it lay upon the floor, Scotland snatched it.

He unfolded it with the intention of ripping it to shreds.

And then he was what his brother had been holding wasn't a white flag. Not any more.

"Artie," he whispered, a lump forming in his throat, "is this blood?"

His brother bobbed his head weakly.

Scotland didn't know if he was moved or worried.

He didn't know if this made his little brother undoubtly strong, unwilling to give in, never going to accept defeat, or if it made him unstable, insane with the pressure of war.

But he knew that this wasn't a white flag.

Drawn across the center, filling out the entirity of the flag, in his brothers' blood, was St. George's Cross.

He bit his lip.

England smiled, drowsy, eyelids heavy with fatigue.

"I'm not going to give up, Scott," he assured him.

Scotland looked back at him. "Is that why you did this, England? To show that you won't give up?"

He laid his head back against the wall and nodded.

"I'm sorry my blood isn't blue, Scott. We could've put you on there as well."

Scotland shook his head. "You are a complete idiot Arthur. Standing in the middle of an air raid, holding the English flag. And what's the first thought that crosses your little fucked up mind? Let's make this the bleeding Union Jack! That doesn't make me a sitting duck for Jerry now, does it?"

England shook his head. "I'm always going to be a sitting duck. You saw Coventry...you know that's what they're calling it now? When you completely destroy an area, it's called "to coventrate"."

Scotland scowled. "That's fucking disgusting."

The woman holding her son shot a foul look at him.

"Would you mind?" she asked. "He's five. I'd rather he wasn't exposed to language like that."

He shrugged.

The little boy looked at him.

"Mummy," he whispered. "That man's holding the flag."

Her eyes also flew to the flag now resting upon his lap. She didn't appear to notice it was stained with blood.

She smiled, a gleam coming into her eyes.

A glimmer of hope.

It was just a red cross on a white background.

And yet it was so much more than that.

It was a promise. A promise that England would not fall.

A promise that Britain would stay strong and united.

A promise that the war would end, and victory would be theirs.

A promise that the flag would never again be merely white.

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><p><strong>Extended an: **

The original title of the story was "Promise". I changed it, because this isn't the same story twelve-year-old me wrote.

In the original, the hero is a solider who has just returned home, and his brother is just his brother. No backstory is mentioned. Except he does say that everyone is worried about the hero, because they think he's shell-shocked.

I want to edit more of these stories, because I'm really fond of them. There's this one that I mentioned before about a boy who grows up with this girl from a few streets down and eventually falls in love with her, and I think it's really cute, so maybe I'll try that one next. However I should probably finish Reversal before I do that.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed re-discovering the original.


End file.
